Howard Giles, 1914-1915

I don't understand this guy. He had the hands and the moves to be a really dynamic illustrator and even participated in an artistic movement called dynamic symmetry described as a "controversial but lasting thesis that design and great art can be created by application of easily followed mathematics." I think it's the mathematics part where they went wrong, but that's just a personal opinion.

Giles was born in Brooklyn. He studied at the Art Students League in New York City, and is known as a painter, illustrator, and teacher. The theory of Dynamic Symmetry belongs to a contemporary of his, Canadian illustrator and painter Jay Hambidge(1867-1924).

The examples shown here are what I think are the best of his work for Harper's Monthly Magazine when he was in his late thirties during the first years of World War I. Click on images to enlarge.

A lead article for a summer issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine "It is pleasant to enter the sea with such lovely creatures," is the caption for the color illustration. It's a contrived composite compared to the understated image of mother and child on the opposite page. You can imagine the individiual photos he worked from and dumped into the crowd scene. Apparent also is what seems to be his total disinterest in the background, whereas the smaller piece has much more feeling.

Click on this image to see more detail. It's what he left out that makes this so charming. But then I'm a big fan of Less is More.

I like this for the same reason. It's probably from a photo, too, but there's a feeling of movement enhanced by excellent compostion. It's a forerunner of what magazine illustration became in mid-century.

Alas, this is the best I have of his boring full color work of the period. All I see are four individual photos and some competent brushwork, an indifferent background and some leaves and branches that get in the way of perception.

Here's another one of his best. It's from June of 1915 and it looks as if it could be the work of a totally different illustrator if you compare this to the color piece above.